Who is Johan?

[Bobwoodword]

I am primarily a CK player, though I'll spend a good chunk of time playing Stellaris every two DLC or so. The first time I heard about this guy was when the Imperator disaster happened. I had pre-ordered the game because I adore the period but refunded after the reviews. I was doing some investigation into what happened and his name kept sprouting up as being responsible. Later on I heard his name again in relationship to some Stellaris updates that I had missed but apparently were deeply unpopular with the community. Now I am hearing about him again in relationship to the worst reviewed product on Steam. I don't mean to be rude but why does this guy keep getting projects if he so consistently fails? Is her part of ownership they can't get rid of? I'm just confused.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Johan basically created Paradox back jn the 90s.
He single handedly coded EU 1 and has been playing a central role in the company ever since.

 

[The Byzantion]

I am primarily a CK player, though I'll spend a good chunk of time playing Stellaris every two DLC or so. The first time I heard about this guy was when the Imperator disaster happened. I had pre-ordered the game because I adore the period but refunded after the reviews. I was doing some investigation into what happened and his name kept sprouting up as being responsible. Later on I heard his name again in relationship to some Stellaris updates that I had missed but apparently were deeply unpopular with the community. Now I am hearing about him again in relationship to the worst reviewed product on Steam. I don't mean to be rude but why does this guy keep getting projects if he so consistently fails? Is her part of ownership they can't get rid of? I'm just confused.

Everyone always asks who Johan is, but does anyone ever ask why Johan is?

 

[Nominus]

That's the guy who laid the foundation of EU4 and I:R.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Everyone always asks who Johan is, but does anyone ever ask why Johan is?

Lovely Holberg quote!

 

[Ixal]

Johan Andersson (game developer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bobwoodword]

Johan basically created Paradox back jn the 90s.
He single handedly coded EU 1 and has been playing a central role in the company ever since.

Thanks. Personally, I don't think there is much relevance to twenty year old successes when everything circa the last decade seems to keep going up in smoke. But a core founder is definitely not an easy person to put out to pasture, so I guess I can understand it. At a certain point you'd think enough was enough though...

 

[Bobwoodword]

Johan Andersson (game developer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dude looks sassy.

 

[Xdevo]

I'm more of a fan of Kaiser Johan personally.

 

[LeandroB]

The thing about him is that people sused to adore him as some kind of demi-god and he always seeing quite full of himself. The last drop for me was when i criticize Impertor: Rome in twitter and he blocked me there.
Honestly, i don't doubt his talent, but he is quite out of touch with the community.

 

[FantasticFwoosh]

Thanks. Personally, I don't think there is much relevance to twenty year old successes when everything circa the last decade seems to keep going up in smoke. But a core founder is definitely not an easy person to put out to pasture, so I guess I can understand it. At a certain point you'd think enough was enough though...

A few points i've heard flying around is that insistence on board game classicalist ideals is a Johan stumbling block.

Is EU4 a board game? It already has a board game apparently and if its within his field of speciality, Johan has never ever even posted a thread to that subforum (I would be greatly interested for to be proven wrong)and until i looked i didnt even knew it existed, id heard of the CK2 board game tangentally but never took it seriously so i can't really wrap my head around it. I guess "Games Company" is a adequate way to describe the studio but its like a clock company making toasters at higher priority because they're popular as a "Mechanical and Convenience Goods" company, until the timing mechanism is so over-tuned all of the toasters holding clock-accurate parts, all the toast gets burnt and the public pans reviews of somewhat usually pretty good but expensive toasters with attachments that affect the outcome in varying degrees.

Im looking at a picture of "a youtuber" playing EU1, its pretty much a far-cry from the meme-ahistorical border-gore clausengine magic machine we'd recognize and i dont know if it'd be be the future, given the way Imperator came out.

 

[R.Graymarch]

In the 1990s, Europa Universalis was a boardgame that Johan adapted into a videogame. Nowadays we are talking about a EU4 boardgame indeed, but the first iteration of EU was not a videogame.
I played the original boardgame and don't really recommend it, its scope is amazing but it's too tedious to play

 

[Atomcreator]

Yes, I backed the board game. Its due to reach us in a few months.

Europa Universalis: The Price of Power

A 4X game of Epic Empire Building in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Age.

www.kickstarter.com

Johan did an endorsement for it on this page a few scrolls down.

 

[Brynjar]

Thanks. Personally, I don't think there is much relevance to twenty year old successes when everything circa the last decade seems to keep going up in smoke. But a core founder is definitely not an easy person to put out to pasture, so I guess I can understand it. At a certain point you'd think enough was enough though...

Getting rid of the people who have proven that they can make great computer games is not the solution. Blizzard have been doing that for years now, and their games certainly aren't getting better. Johan may be stubborn when it comes to believing in what is good for a game, and while he may be wrong more often than I would like, I would much rather have him than someone who gives in to every demand from the community. Doing that is a guaranteed way to ruin a game.

As for who Johan is to someone who may influence the decisions made at Paradox, you can read this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1387679442613555201

 

[merulaalba]

Johan basically created Paradox back jn the 90s.
He single handedly coded EU 1 and has been playing a central role in the company ever since.

Johan also played a great role in making Vicky 2, the best PDX game ever.

Also Imperator is now quite a good game, after Marius update, worth a buy

 

[Kazanov]

I am primarily a CK player, though I'll spend a good chunk of time playing Stellaris every two DLC or so. The first time I heard about this guy was when the Imperator disaster happened. I had pre-ordered the game because I adore the period but refunded after the reviews. I was doing some investigation into what happened and his name kept sprouting up as being responsible. Later on I heard his name again in relationship to some Stellaris updates that I had missed but apparently were deeply unpopular with the community. Now I am hearing about him again in relationship to the worst reviewed product on Steam. I don't mean to be rude but why does this guy keep getting projects if he so consistently fails? Is her part of ownership they can't get rid of? I'm just confused.

Johan gets all the blame for everything that went wrong with Imperator and EU4 mostly because he is the visible head of such projects, but he is hardly the responsible for all the horrors we have seen, games are developed by teams and ruined by the Marketing department -the evil antagonist in any company because they always push for profits over quality...even in non-profit humanitarian organizations-, maybe the QA team needs more funding and priority because quality assurance is a key component in any business that wants to prosper.

Blaming Johan for everything that goes wrong is unfair. Games are released by collectives and not individuals and even there the teams of Paradox try to fix their mistakes...not like...let say...Blizzard.

 

[LeandroB]

Blaming Johan for everything that goes wrong is unfair. Games are released by collectives and not individuals and even there the teams of Paradox try to fix their mistakes...not like...let say...Blizzard.

Not really, he was the lead in both projects, Imperator and EU4. As a leader in a project you have to manage so as not to release a shitty product. And he failed in both times.

 

[Sfan]

From what I heard and experienced, Johan is an excellent developper, but maybe not the friendliest person, and maybe not the best manager. He was doing an excellent job when he was handling a small team of nerdy devs and spent countless hours laying the foundation of most Paradox games: he literally created everything we love and made an opaque and super slow genre of board games somewhat friendly and accessible.
But he seems a bit out of touch when it comes to managing and leading a huge project like most Paradox games now are, with most developpers half his age, and probably a different business and design philosophy than in the 2000's.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm more of a fan of Kaiser Johan personally.

I've learned a trick or two from Kaiser Johan, haha.

 

[Sfan]

Damn, if even you learned things from him, my respect for him keeps rising. I would count on one hand the people who could potentially teach you something about the game.